A More Human-Friendly And Safer Robot To Work With [Headlines]

Last winter, NASA technicians sent a humanoid robot dubbed Robonaut 2 to the International Space Station. R2, which has only a torso, sophisticated arms and fingers, and a head full of sensors, was the result of a joint effort by NASA and General Motors to create a robot that could operate safely alongside humans. Robots like R2 could carry out dangerous or tedious tasks on space missions, but they’d also be useful on the ground, where they could assist factory workers. Robots have typically been segregated from humans for safety reasons, but improvements mean they’re now poised to take on a wider variety of tasks. TechnologyReview